Elon Musk Says It Wasn't an Explosion That Took Out SpaceX's Rocket

Yesterday, one of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rockets went up in a blaze of flames, taking its satellite payload right along with it. But it wasn’t an explosion, says company founder Elon Musk. Instead, what we saw was just a really fast fire.

Musk took to Twitter to note the difference:

@scrappydog yes. This seems instant from a human perspective, but it really a fast fire, not an explosion. Dragon would have been fine.

The company has managed to come back from an exploded ISS launch (with the full cargo inside) to become a key supplier for NASA’s cargo runs. And its road to landing a rocket on a barge was littered with crashes and explosions before it start reliably landing them.

SpaceX had already started testing how the capsule handles a jettison. Now it sounds like it’s also looking at data from yesterday’s fire to figure out how the capsule needs to work to protect the crew. Whatever yesterday’s blaze was, in the end it might mean a safer rocket.